Web Technology

The Phenomenon of Wide Area Social Networking

Everyone agrees trackbacks do not work. But now there is something else that could take its place. Wide Area Social Networking or WASN is a phenomenon that I first noticed at dzone.com. Will WASN be the next hot trend for Web 2.0 and will spread like wild fire over the entire internet? Can it be what trackbacks tried to be?

The problems with trackbacks

Spamming was the downfall of trackbacks. Automated scripts and predictable URLs lead to catastrophy on most websites. Though some websites continue to use trackbacks it is becoming less and less common as website owners are finding that they are being bombarded with server calls and pings. This usually leads to a problem with server resources or bandwidth usage. Comments made through trackbacks lose relevancy because their is no threading control or quote system. The worst thing about trackbacking is that it is a peer to peer system and leaves no room for group or community activity.

The solution

Websites like Dzone.com can possibly be a solution to trackback chaos. They can do this by taking advantage of an ever growing trend in blogging. In the last weeks many have been posting links to articles in response and rebuttal to other articles. In other words bloggers are RE: ing each other via a common website. So I thought to myself would it not be nice if they were grouped and threaded together? Dzone.com would act as a forum with an extranet like format. It would be more of a social linking hub. Much better than trackbacking because the links would be controlled by the community members. Also everyone could participate not just two peer websites. This would of course take some modifications of the website but it should not be anything that requires a complete tear down.

Those that are adept in PHP coding may want to look at Pligg. Pligg would be the perfect candidate for this type of modification.

Social Hubs

To take advantage of this phenomenon there will be a sudden appearance of social hubs. Where an article is submitted and given a response key rather than as part of a URL. Those that want to argue or respond to the article will pick up a response key that will be used to thread their response in with the the lead article. Response keys are handed out in numerical and hierarchial order. The final product appears like a forum thread where the main entries are on the users website and the submitted post contains a snippet of that or a description of the response.

Low spam

Since reponses have to be voted on to make it to the front page they become self moderated. Unlike a lone website a social hub has hundreds of eyes and hands controlling the output. Community members will read response links and moderate them. If the response is spam then it will be known almost immediately throughout the network. Automated responses are held down by the system itself. Since response keys can be randomized encrypted it will be very difficult to write an automated spamming script.

Low tech solution with high involvement

The technology can be secured even further by asking for more involvement from the community as it grows. A trusted website network can be established by giving a primary response key (a url on the members website) only to approved websites. This can act as a further deterant to spamming. Community participation means the degree of technology need to accomplish this need not be complicated.

Conclusion

Wide Area Social Networking hubs might start appearing tomorrow because they are the best solution to the problems that come with peer to peer linking and social networking. The fact is that it is the next logical step in Web 2.0 trends.

Happy Publishing!

Discussion

3 comments for “The Phenomenon of Wide Area Social Networking”

1. 

   I’m here little confused.
   Ain’t this Dzone similar to Digg.com??

   Posted by Anonymous | November 8, 2006, 11:33
2. 

   I neglected to add that for Dzone to fit into the proposed idea that it would have to be modified. So to answer this question and some emails, I have updated the article and added a flowchart image.

   Posted by Anonymous | November 8, 2006, 12:21
3. 

   Interesting idea. We’ve got a site similar but different to dzone called TekTag.com. It’s more del.icio.us than Digg, and it’s more for IT staff than just developers.

   So, anyway, can you expound on the key idea? I’d like to understand how we might apply this idea.

   Thanks,

   Tim

   Posted by Anonymous | May 9, 2007, 01:18

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